Take 10 drinks of water and eat peanut butter....

Sometimes you can keep a film on your shelf for months on end before deciding to test the waters. This was my experience with Hukkle, a Hungarian film boasting no dialouge. For so long I put off watching it, perhaps the term 'no dialouge' pushed me away, or maybe I was afraid of just another experimental art film boring me to tears. Finally I gave it a chance and I am very thankful I did. From Hukkle's website, directory György Pálfi gives us this synapsis:

I think that the most important organizing

elements of the film are the rhythm,

different noises and voices that stand

in place of the words and sentences stated

in concrete situations, and mixed

by those generate some strange mixture,

a kind of "symphony of noises".

From the small noises appear micro-stories that,

compared with the spoken words

point exactly the sole real story,

the human tragedy hidden behind peace.

Plays as sort of some fictionalized documentary coupled with sound experimentation, Hukkle stands in a genre of its own. The idea is that the village elder's hiccup's set a tempo, and a story develops in secret by the sounds and images that follow. My favorite parts were ones where scene craftsmanship is apparent. A ladybug playfully crawling up a female shepherd stuck out to me, then fluttering off at just the right moment. You can't train a ladybug!!! Many times during the film, subtle things such as this showed apparent rhythm and tempo from the director and crew. I love films that have technical acheivements like this, Russian Ark is another that comes to mind.

The 'secret' way of storytelling that I spoke of earlier is actually what director Pálfi considers a 'style game', using 'magic images' : pictures you can view one way, then turn upside down and get a new picture altogether. To the left we see an old woman in a hat, turn it upside down and you get an old man, actually pretty similar looking to uncle Bandi in the film. This is the idea that Pálfi played with when determining how to tell his story and it works really well.

The DVD I had contained some extra features, namely a commentary that was very fun and some behind the scenes 'making of' segment, which really moved me. The cast were all indigenous people of the village of Ozora and many of them, predominately elder Uncle Bandi, were able to travel with the film crew to festivals and awards ceremonies throughout the world. That was the real joy to see, real people enjoying their adventurous lives. For the crew, I would have to imagine that was the real payoff.